


when you walked into the room just then

by orphan_account



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 23:53:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11301441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Gene! Hey, Gene?”Gene stops short, turns around.Babe is making his way towards him.





	when you walked into the room just then

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maddieaddam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maddieaddam/gifts).



> sorry for any typos
> 
> title from [start of time by gabrielle aplin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWcGtLblBxs)
> 
> maddie, this is for you <3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It feels a lot like the nights are only getting longer in Bastogne. That’s what comes to Gene in the early hours of the morning, anyway. His fingers are frozen stiff, the tips of his ears smarting from the sharp, cold knife on the wind.

And there’s that yawning, cold emptiness around him.

There—

“Gene! Hey, Gene?”

Gene stops short, turns around.

Babe is making his way towards him.

Gene’s brow furrows in confusion. “Heffron—”

“What if a Kraut gets you, huh? Walkin’ around all by yourself, Doc—Bill would’a had my head—”

And then Babe’s sidling up next to him, pressing their shoulders together. The snow is falling down in thick, slow clumps, gathering in his eyelashes; when he links, Babe is still there, hunched against the cold, nose wrinkled in disdain. “C’mon, doc. Spina’s lookin’ for you.” Gene opens his mouth to object—he’s got another set of rounds to make, just to be sure—but Babe just loops his arm through Gene’s and starts dragging him off in the direction of his and Joe Liebgott’s foxhole.

“Actually, we all were lookin’ for ya, Gene,” Babe is saying, “Spina said you’d be out here—and c’mon, Gene, just get some rest for Christ sake, would ya?”

“Heffron—”

Babe won’t listen to him.

“Where’re we goin’, Babe?”

“A foxhole. With hot chow. Where you’re staying. Spina’s orders.”

Gene’s eyes widen a fraction; a smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. He—

“And _I’m_ stayin’ with ya, Gene. Bill said you’re just gonna wander off into another Kraut’s goddamn foxhole if I don’t keep an eye on you—”

Gene’s eyelids are drooping, but his mind is still spinning like a wheel on an overturned jeep. Spina’d told him to lay low for the night—“get some actual sleep, Gene,”—but he knew that, if he didn’t go out into those trees—

Babe keeps going on about how Bill _said_ Gene would do this, how Liebgott’s been given strict orders by Toye to shoot him if he leaves before morning, because, “ _dammit_ , Gene, could ya just take a break? For me? Jesus—”

The nights here in Bastogne are cold, and only seem to be getting longer, but—

Gene’s heart is glowing warm, warm, warm behind his ribs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
